Auburn approves construction of $16.5 million indoor football practice facility

MONTGOMERY -- The Auburn Board of Trustees approved a $16.5 million indoor football practice facility Friday that will feature a much-needed 120-yard field.

Auburn Athletics Director Jay Jacobs

The new facility will trump the current indoor facility that features a 40-yard field that often forces the offense and defense to take turns practicing in bad weather.

The 92,000 square-foot facility will also be available for soccer, baseball, softball and track to practice in bad weather.

(We have a new blog up with a couple of artist renderings of the new building and comments
from Gene Chizik as well.)

The proposal approved called the indoor facility to "designate as an expedited project." Construction will begin after the 2010 season. Auburn wants to open the facility before the 2011 season.

"It's just another step in our master plan that we put together five years ago to compete at the highest level in all our sports," said Auburn Athletics Director Jay Jacobs.

The new facility will replace the John H. Watson Fieldhouse, which was dedicated in 1999.

The new indoor facility will run the length of the main outdoor practice field. Both fields will run east-west, rather than the layout of the existing fields, which run north-south. The new practice layout will reduce the number of outdoor practice fields from three to two.

The $16.5 million indoor facility is the biggest athletic expansion since the school built the $90 million Auburn Arena, which will open this basketball season; and follows the expansion of the track and soccer facilities.

Part of the facility will be initially funded by a bond issue. The project will be entirely funded by the athletic department.

With the opening of the Auburn Arena, the trustees were also told of a preliminary plan to demolish Beard-Eaves-Memorial Coliseum and build a parking garage its place.

Auburn approved Inifinity Architecture of Montgomery as the design consultants and Robins and Morton Construction of Birmingham as the construction manager.

A $72 million student wellness center was also approved. It will be located near Beard-Eaves and the Auburn Arena. Construction will likely begin in a year with an opening two years later.